From drjudd@rainbow.net.au Fri Aug 30 08:40:26 1996
OFFSPRING
DESLEA R. JUDD
drjudd@rainbow.net.au
Copyright 1996

DISCLAIMER

This book is based on The X Files, a creation of Chris Carter owned by
him, Twentieth Century Fox, and Ten-Thirteen Productions. Fox Mulder,
Dana Scully, Walter Skinner, and a number of lesser characters including
Bill Mulder, Mrs Mulder, Samantha Mulder and her clones, Maggie Scully,
Melissa Scully, Captain Scully, Sharon Skinner, Kimberly Cooke, the
Cigarette Smoking (Cancer) Man, the Well Manicured Man and his offsider,
Frohike, Quiqueg, Gautier, Jean Gautier, Ellen, and Alex Krycek remain the
intellectual property of those parties. A number of other characters are
the author's creation and are copyright, and may not be used without her
written permission. These include but are not limited to Dr Karen
Koettig, Agent Grbevski, Melissa Samantha Scully, Grace Skinner, Clone 1
(Cynthia), Clone 3 (Carolyn), Clone 4 (Catherine), Dr Sam Fieldman, Dr
Paul Sturrock, Dr Marion Pieterse, Wendy Tomiris, Serena Ingleburn,
Amarette, Dr Jillian Maitz, Hallie, and Emily Trent. Any queries
concerning ownership of minor characters not mentioned here should be
directed to the author.

(See Pt 1 for complete spoiler, content, and comments info).

A few spoilers from Pilot, Duane Barry, Ascension, One Breath, Colony,
Endgame, Anasazi, Blessing Way, Paper Clip, Nisei, 7.31, Piper Maru,
Apocrypha, and Avatar.

I've rated this book R just to be on the safe side, but I think it's more
PG-13, in truth. There's some low-level sex (three scenes, more
emotional than anatomical), low-level bad language, low-level violence,
and that's about all.

Comments, good and bad, are welcome; but make sure they're constructive,
please! My e-mail is drjudd@rainbow.net.au, but don't worry if you see
something else in your "reply" header like magna.com, because Rainbow.Net
shares a server with another ISP called MagnaData. And if you think my
work's worth stealing, I'm flattered; but don't even think about it.
Archivists, feel free to add this to your collections; but be sure to let
me know.

OFFSPRING BY DESLEA R. JUDD (3/18)

ONE CONTINUED

3170 West 53 Rd, #35
Annapolis, Maryland
September 13, 1996

Skinner and Scully sat in companionable silence.
They were in her apartment, and it was late; but she gave no hint
that he should go. In fact, she seemed eager for him to stay. She had
brushed aside Mulder's expression of concern when he had left, but now
that she was faced with the prospect of being left alone, she seemed
unwilling to let Skinner go.
Skinner, for his part, was uncomfortable. Internal truth-telling was
one thing, but he had a horrible feeling that if he stayed alone with her
in her apartment for too much longer, he would in some way express what he
had learned about himself. He didn't want to do that. He didn't want to
love Dana. He was just too damned old to deal with that stuff. He
<> being a bachelor. It was lonely, horribly lonely...but it was
easy.
And if he did tell her? Now, tonight? What then? She might reject
him, and he didn't want to put her in that position after her ordeal. She
was injured and vulnerable. To have to fend off anyone's unwanted
attentions - least of all from her boss, for God's sake - could be the
last straw. And what if she accepted him? He'd never know whether it was
real or something which happened out of her own vulnerability - and in
fact it would probably be the latter. No, he had to get the hell out of
there.
But first, he had to know that she was really all right.
"Scully?"
The silence broken, Scully jumped, dropping her mug. It was empty,
but she started to stammer in dismay. "Oh, God, look what I've done.
It'll stain, I know it'll stain-"
"Scully."
She didn't stop, but picked up the mug and put it on the coffee table
with a clatter and brushed at the unblemished rug. Skinner called her
name once more. She ignored him, continued to prattle nervously. He took
her hands. "Scully!"
Finally, suddenly, she was silent and still. She looked at him for a
moment, then looked away, sheepish. "God, I don't know what's happening
to me. For a moment there, I just - phew!"
He frowned. "Dana, you're not okay, are you?"
She bit her lip. <> He cleared the unworthy thought from his mind.
But Scully didn't cry. Instead, she said in a low, ragged voice,
"I'm frightened, Walter." She had never called him by his name before,
but he didn't seem to mind. "I've been shot at, I've been abducted twice,
my sister died - and Mulder gets shot at every day of the damned week, for
heaven's sake; they killed his father and poisoned his water. When I
joined the Bureau, I knew danger from the criminals was part of the
territory. But it's the government that's trying to hurt me - and for
doing what I was hired to do! I just don't know who to trust anymore.
I'm frightened. I can't give up on the X Files, but sometimes I get so
afraid-"
She stopped short. Skinner still held her hands, but he wouldn't
meet her gaze. His face was averted, but she could see a shadow of
distress in his features. "What is it?" He shook his head. "What is
it?" she repeated, more firmly.
"It doesn't matter, Scully. Why don't you take some time off?
Recover? I don't mean just tomorrow. I mean real time. Time to regroup
- you've been through so much -" he broke off, that look of distress
there once more.
Scully's look was contemptuous. Irritated, she pulled her hands
away. "I want you to tell me what's wrong," she demanded, annoyed.
Skinner looked away again. He thought that there was rather more
truth in his eyes that he cared to reveal.
But Scully, he realised, didn't care about these things. She was
forthright and principled, and she wanted the truth more than she wanted
to be protected or safe. After a moment, he met her gaze squarely. "All
right. If you must know, I hate this every bit as much as you do. I
<> it. Damn it, Scully, one of these days you're going to get
yourself killed, and I don't want to be hurt when that happens!" His
voice broke a little. "But it's a little too late for that, I'm afraid.
I already care - rather more than I should."
She didn't look shocked, or look away. She had more grit than that.
"I see."
"It doesn't matter, Scully," he said curtly. "You wanted the truth,
and I gave it to you. That's all." He stopped. "I should go." He
averted his gaze, stared straight ahead. "Do you want me to post guards
outside for a few days?"
"No. I don't."
He started to rise from the sofa. Scully watched him, her emerald
eyes clouding with compassion and warmth. Impulsively, she took his arm.
"Walter?"
He turned back to face her and reluctantly met her eyes. Scully was
silent a moment, considering this man who she had come to care for - this
man who she knew loved her. She made her decision with uncharacteristic
disregard for the consequences. Tentatively, she said gently, "Don't
go."
Skinner felt his soundness of judgement leave him. He knew>> he
should go. He also knew that he wouldn't, couldn't. They moved at the
same instant, and he kissed her with a tenderness he hadn't known he
possessed (although Sharon Skinner could have told him, had she been
alive), touched her face and her neck and traced the curves of her body,
his eyes holding hers. Still not entirely sure how she felt about all of
this, Scully let him; and in dawning realisation she came to see that she
did want him, after all. He kissed her again, this time more insistently,
demandingly; and this time her lips sought his, matching him in passion
and fervour. She felt his hands on her, one on her neck, the other on her
hip, her thigh; she breathed out shakily, pressing her body against him.
She wound her arms around him and leaned back, drawing him with her,
wanting him closer. She ran her fingertips over the smooth skin of his
neck and with deliberate precision unfastened his tie and the buttons of
his shirt. There was pain in her wounded stomach, but she barely noticed
it. As they slid down into the sofa, him carefully supporting her back,
he felt her pushing his shirt back off his shoulders, suddenly tentative -
almost shy.
He was intrigued. She was normally so firm, so assertive. He'd
never seen her so unsure. And yet, wasn't he unsure, too? Somehow the
comfortable confidence of being with Sharon for so long had made him ever
conscious of the awkwardness, the unfamiliarity of being with someone
new. With hesitancy of his own, he touched her beneath Mulder's shirt
until she led his hands to the lacy bra beneath. He felt the delicate
curve of her breasts, their fiery heat. "I want to look at you, Dana," he
breathed, taking the shirt up over her head and discarding it. She sat
before him, suddenly vulnerable. She had never wondered about her
attractiveness, never really cared, but suddenly she thought, <>
She was exquisite. She was very like Grace, but she was different,
too. The translucent white skin which glowed against the pale blue lace,
the perfectly defined lips of her beautiful small mouth, the sparkling
emerald eyes which darkened to sapphire with desire...these were all her
own. He gave a low sound of anticipation, and all at once their mouths
found one another once more. Dana unclasped the bra, wanting to feel him
ever closer, and it fell away. He breathed her scent around her neck,
between her breasts, in her hair as he kissed her everywhere. His fingers
found the warmth at the heart of her, and she made the tiniest sound. He
was so utterly absorbed in her that he was hardly conscious of her lips
brushing lightly over his neck and his shoulders, or her hands moving to
his waist, then lower, and doing to him what he was doing to her. He
touched her with the fascinated air of someone who has found something
completely unique in the universe. In a way, he supposed, he had. He
heard her breathe his name in sudden, exquisite pleasure.
He wasn't sure who led who, but they made their way to Dana's
bedroom. As they sank back onto her bed, her beneath him, her shock of
copper hair brushing her bare shoulders, he gently touched the bandage
over her stomach. "I don't want to hurt you," he said gently.
"It'll be okay if we're careful," she reassured him softly. She
touched his wounded arm with a pang of guilt. "I'm sorry you were hurt.
I never did thank you."
"Don't thank me like this, Dana. That's not what this is about."
"I'm with you because I want to be." So saying, she reached up and
silenced him with a kiss.
There were no more words after that, only the sound of the rain and
the gentle rustling of skin against skin and bodies rising to meet one
another. In the dark, there was no Skinner and Scully, merely man and
woman together in the dark dance of a love older than time. And when he
entered her, became one with her, it was as though that was how it had
always been.

When it was over, he held her as she drifted off to sleep. He slept
too, but he was restless; and he woke whenever she did. And she woke,
often, with nightmares she couldn't remember.
Walter used the time to reflect on the situation. He knew that this
affair could not continue. And the thing that was so maddening about it
all was that they <> have made it work, they <> have, if
only it didn't matter.
If only he didn't love her.
He didn't pretend to know her mind. Perhaps, for her, it was love;
more likely, it was the desperate abandon two survivors share. But he
knew they could only ever be friends.
But first, there was the night, the morning.
They made love again in the gray light of the dawn, their bodies
melding against one another, then laying still.
Dana was the one who raised the issue of the future. "Walter?"
He stirred. "Yes?"
"This can't happen again." He bowed his head, unhappy but
acquiescent. Perhaps misreading the gesture as denial, she went on,
"You're a superior officer, and we're all under scrutiny already. This
could be construed as a security risk. You could be open to disciplinary
action." She touched his face tenderly, regret lighting on her own. "I
don't want that."
His hold on her tightened instinctively. "Dana, not now. Tonight's ours."
She wouldn't let it go. "And after that?"
Finally seeing that she had to have her answer, Walter said (and it
pained him to say it), "Friends. Always."
"Always," she agreed.
They spoke of other things, consequential and inconsequential.
Walter told her about Grace. They drowsed again, their embrace tight with
the knowledge that it could not happen again; and finally, he left her,
still sleeping, her touch and her taste and her scent already a
bittersweet memory.

Basement
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Washington, D.C.
October 4, 1996

Mulder looked up from his desk, then got to his feet. "Scully!" he
exclaimed, pleased; and in an unusual show of affection he hurried over to
her and kissed her cheek. "You're back at last."
Scully smiled gently. "Dug up any aliens in my absence, Mulder?" she
demanded, her voice suffused with warmth.
"Just a few of your old boyfriends."
His voice held no knowledge. It was a reference to an old joke, that
was all. "You're welcome to them. What have we got happening?"
Scully, in the end, had taken three weeks off work. The first two
had been stress leave, which she personally felt no need of but which had
been beneficial as she recovered from her gunshot wound, which had nagged
at her for most of that time. Towards the end of that time, though, she
had been taken terribly ill, throwing up and sleeping all the time, and
had taken another week off. She had feared infection, but that appeared
not to be the case. Truth be told, she was no better now; but she was
anxious to return to work.
She and Walter had seen each other several times since the night they
had spent in one another's arms. Resolutely, they had kept to their
decision to remain on platonic terms, but they had become very close. She
knew that he loved her. She had quite deliberately formed no opinion on
the matter in her own mind, but she suspected that, were she to examine
her feelings closely, she would have to say that she loved him, too - at
least on some level. But she felt no qualms about coming back to work
under his supervision, no doubts about her own professionalism or his.
Not that it was quite so simple as that. There was one, nagging
worry creeping in on her; but she would leave it until the day after
tomorrow before she would allow it to take hold. Shaking herself, she
made herself listen to what Mulder was saying.
He was reciting the current caseload, chapter and verse. There was
nothing which particularly interested her. "Anything on my case?" she
asked.
Mulder was silent a moment, before admitting, "No. Dead ends
everywhere. I'm sorry."
"I'll live. Let's get to work."

Basement
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Washington, D.C.
October 9, 1996

Mulder watched Scully out of the corner of his eye. She had been
back for a week, and for the first two days of that she had been all
enthusiasm, eager to settle back into work. But for the last three, she
had been suddenly withdrawn and pensive. Neither medical trivia nor
light-hearted banter had drawn her from her lifeless shell. Noting the
circles under her eyes, he wondered if it had been such a good idea for
her to return just now.
But he had voiced that already, albeit tentatively. Scully had
scoffed at him. "I'm fine, Mulder. I've got a virus, that's all." It
was true, he supposed; she'd been running to the bathroom all week, and
she had turned positively green at the sight of his lunch yesterday. Not
that that surprised him; his greasy junk-food diet offended her to the
depths of her scientific soul.
Yet he was concerned. He couldn't put his finger on it, but damn it,
he <> Scully and he knew when something wasn't right.
Suddenly aware of his scrutiny, Scully looked up from her work.
"What's the matter?" she frowned.
Mulder pursed his lips. "I don't know, Scully. <> won't tell
me," he said pointedly, suddenly annoyed.
"Oh, Mulder, don't start." She dropped her curly head back into her files.
"Scully, I know you better than that. Something's wrong and it's
affecting your work. As your friend, I want to know. As your partner, I
have a <> to know."
She regarded him for a moment, then made a decision. It was bull,
and they both knew it; her work was as good as ever. (And, she reflected
wryly, he would never have pulled such a dirty guilt trip on her, except
that he knew she wouldn't buy it). Nonetheless, she wanted him to know.
She had felt very alone these last few days. "All right. Off the
record."
Mulder looked at her closely, suddenly noticing the dark circles
under her eyes. Her skin was drawn tightly over her flawless features.
There was tension in every line of her. Whatever it was, it was big.
"You know better than that, Scully. Everything's off the record between
us."
Her face became wooden, deliberately expressionless. "I'm expecting."
Mulder's eyes widened a little. He hadn't expected this. Scully was
so - so <>. He wasn't so naive as to think she was a virgin,
but he hadn't known she was seeing anyone. Though reserved, it wasn't
like her to be secretive. And Scully wasn't into flings.
With some self-control, he quelled the sarcasm that leaped to his
mind. After all, this was Scully. His friend. He didn't want to be
hurtful. He settled for a surprised whistle. "Are you okay?"
"I'll live. And," she added, "so will the child."
Mulder wasn't surprised. He knew she didn't believe in abortion, and
had she not understood his querying look, he wouldn't have even asked.
"Who's the lucky fellow?" He could have kicked himself, knowing even
before her expression froze that he'd overstepped the mark.
"No-one you know," she replied curtly. She got to her feet. "I'll
be back."
"Where are you going?"
Scully bit her lip nervously. "To see Skinner."

Assistant Director's Office
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Washington, D.C.
October 9, 1996

"How did it happen?"
"You want me to teach you biology?"
Skinner gave her a withering look. "I mean, we took precautions."
Scully shook her head. "Who knows? Breaks and leaks happen. We
might not have noticed." An alarmed look flitted across her milky-white
features. She said in a low voice, "Walter, I haven't been with anyone
else in a long time. This child-" she almost choked on the word. Dear
God, she was having a <>! "This child is yours."
Skinner shook his head. He wasn't handling this very well. She'd
misunderstood him. "I believe you, Dana. I do. I just - wondered." He
rose and came around his desk. He sat down beside her. "What do you want
to do?"
Scully lifted her head. "I want the child, Walter. And even if I
didn't, I don't believe in abortion." Her voice was not pleading or
cajoling. It was one of dignity. He nodded in mute acceptance of her
decision, knowing that even if he had wanted her to terminate (and he
didn't; abortion was something he saw solely in terms of the daughter who
had died with his wife) this was not a choice he would ever be able to
influence. Dana's ethics, her will; these were stronger than his.
"How are you doing? Really?"
She shrugged her shoulders, a crooked little smile forming. "I'm
okay. I wasn't, but I am now." She paused. "You?" she asked awkwardly.
Skinner reflected for a moment. A screaming, irrational part of him
was terrified for this woman who was carrying his child. < if she continues with this pregnancy, Walter,
she'll .>> Ruthlessly, he pushed the little voice down; for the
rest of him, it was as though he had been given the chance to regain that
which had been so cruelly stolen from him. "You know, quite to my own
surprise, I'm okay, too, Dana. I'm - pleased."
"You know, Walter, I don't expect anything from you. I'm prepared to
raise this child alone. I just - wanted you to know." The quiet dignity
in her voice made him ache. It seemed to him that her very dignity made
her more alone than anyone should ever be.
Skinner crouched beside her chair and put his arms around her. He
drew her against him. "You're not alone, Dana. Not now, not ever."
They stayed that way for a long time.

Coming In Part 4: Up In Flames/Skinner Gets Protective/Scully Gets Mad

Source: geocities.com/hollywood/7443

( geocities.com/hollywood)